Category: Las Vegas

We saw this mentioned on Doctor of Credit over the weekend… while Starwood Preferred is no longer a Caesars Entertainment partner, you now have the option to pair up Wyndham Rewards with Total Rewards, getting a status match in whichever direction makes the most sense for you.

It wasn’t entirely clear where to set this up, in Total Rewards or in Wyndham Rewards, but a quick Google site search found the www.wyndhamrewards.com/caesars/ portal page. From here you can see what benefits and matches apply today, and start the status match in whichever direction you choose.

In the past eight days we’ve dined on burgers six times. This is about four more than our usual weekly burger quota, but a week in Las Vegas warrants some exploration. Let’s take a look around the week of burgers.

In This Post:

Gordon Ramsay Burger, Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas (Total Rewards)

Michael Mina Pub 1842, MGM Grand, Las Vegas (MLife Rewards)

Fleur by Hubert Keller, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas (MLife Rewards)

Gordon Ramsay Burger, again

Nom Burger, Downtown Sunnyvale, California

Jack In The Box, San Jose, California

Prices listed are modest estimates; you can spend a bit less or a whole lot more at any of the venues.

Hyatt Gold Passport turned into World of Hyatt in March 2017. The first big promo for World of Hyatt launched recently, offering double base points for your *second* stay and beyond, through June 30, 2017.

Sign up for the “Double Points For Being You” promo here at hyatt.com. You need to be a World of Hyatt member of course (Hyatt Gold Passport members were cut over March 1st).

Many of our readers will be headed to Las Vegas over the next couple of months. Whether it’s InteropITX, Cisco Live, VMworld, or something else, you may be curious about the quickest way to optimize your rewards and your stay while you’re there.

While reading all the other posts on rsts11travel would be the most thorough way to learn your way around Vegas, we figured we’d put together a unified list of things to do and think about as you head to what will be Tech City for much of the summer.

Welcome back to rsts11travel. Jimmy Buffett enticed us back to Las Vegas last weekend–no April foolin’ here–for a long weekend at Signature at MGM Grand. With Signature’s proximity both to the MGM Grand Garden Arena and the Las Vegas Monorail station, it’s an ideal and affordable option to enjoy relative quiet and little to no smoke. You still have the ease of access through the District to MGM Grand proper, and the entire strip is accessible one way or another, including the Harmon Ave sneaky path to Planet Hollywood.

It took a couple of weeks, but the rsts11travel review of Aria Las Vegas’s Aria Sky Suites property finally came out this week. One of the prods to stop editing and just post it was that we were booking another stay for this summer that was somewhat related. Not everyone will celebrate a birthday and aim for MLife Gold in one weekend, but about anyone with the right charge card can take advantage of these benefits.

Delano’s all-suite plan makes it a very comfortable place for longer-term stays on the Las Vegas strip

We’ve written briefly about Delano Las Vegas in our Hidden Gems piece earlier this year. It’s one of our favorite properties on the strip, especially when attending an event being held in Mandalay Bay Convention Center. With its small lounge and bar, coffee shop with pastries and snacks, and Della’s Kitchen breakfast/lunch venue, you can get a lot done without passing Michael Jackson, and with Delano itself being a non-smoking, non-casino hotel with a separate entrance, those with sensitivity to noise or smoke can escape those discomforts in their “home” hotel. But you’re a few hundred feet from Cirque du Soleil, the Mandalay Bay casino, their dining options from fast counter service to posh sit-down service, and of course the rest of the strip.

You only turn 29 so many times, I often say. Two years ago for my birthday we went to Las Vegas for a weekend at the Mandarin Oriental. This year we went a bit upscale and spent a weekend at Aria’s Sky Suites in the City Center complex. In the process we had some great experiences and re-qualified for MLife Rewards Gold status for next year in one (pricey) stay.

This is a long read, but we try to cover a packed weekend in an unusual property, so you should find it worth the journey.

Givens and Druthers

The owner of a model train shop I used to frequent in Indianapolis started every railroad design workshop with “givens and druthers.” The givens are your limitations. For a train layout it might be a 6×8 closet/garage, or having to fold up at night so the dog doesn’t eat it. The druthers are the “I’ll settle for this, but I’druther have that” wish list items. These are good categories to take into account when planning travel excursions as well.

Given #1: I travel a fair bit for my day job, and in that role I have to choose approved hotels and lowest cost options at those hotels. So the first given on this trip was something upscale from what work would normally pay for.

Given #2: A spa visit. Last summer we visited the Bathhouse at Delano (in the Mandalay Bay complex) and we wanted to refill our spa experience on this trip.

Given #3: An affordable (for an admittedly stretched value of “affordable”) rate, taking advantage of any special rates, promos, or other considerations we could find to optimize the expenditure and the experience.

Druther #1: Having just seen a video about the Aria penthouse suites, something like that was intriguing but likely out of our price range, but it was the first druther.

Druther #2: A private spa suite; Bathhouse had couples massages, but when we weren’t waiting for or having our massage, we were in the segregated spa facilities. Not as romantic as you might think.

In an earlier post, we talked about the Caesars Entertainment Total Rewards and MGM Resorts Mlife Rewards programs. Today we’re looking at the Total Rewards VISA and Mlife Rewards Mastercard credit card offerings, to see how they can help you increase status and/or rewards.

While each program has a branded credit card that may accelerate your benefits, you’ll definitely want to consider whether another travel or cashback card may give you better rewards. And of course, remember that carrying a balance on a rewards card can easily eradicate any net value of the rewards. Continue reading “Credit where credit is due – Vegas reward credit cards”→

Welcome to rsts11 travel, my new effort to share discoveries and recommendations from my travels. This is another post on the Las Vegas topic; be sure to see the other posts regarding hotel chains and statuses as well as the strip branded credit card options (coming soon!).

What’s the deal with Total Rewards and Mlife Rewards?

Status at the two major Las Vegas strip hotel chains is easy to come by. Spend a lot of money, and you get status. Sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? We’re going to talk about tiers and status here; reward credits are a different beast for another post. Continue reading “Taking the fast track to Las Vegas status”→

Welcome to rsts11 travel, my new effort to share discoveries and recommendations from my travels. Today we’re visiting the Signature at MGM Grand, Delano at Mandalay Bay, Vdara at Aria, and Mandarin Oriental in City Center, checking out coffee-friendly, non-smoking, non-casino options in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip.

Be sure to visit our welcome post, and watch for more Las Vegas-themed posts in the next week to start things with a pop. On the board to round out January 2017 are a mobile power post and a mobile caffeine post.